Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to object exchange methods, exposure methods, carrier systems, exposure apparatuses, and device manufacturing methods, and more particularly, to an exchange method in which a thin plate-shaped object is exchanged on a holding member, an exposure method using the exchange method, a carrier system which carries a thin plate-shaped object, an exposure apparatus which is equipped with the carrier system, and a device manufacturing method which uses the exposure method or the exposure apparatus.
Description of the Background Art
Conventionally, in a lithography process for manufacturing electron devices (microdevices) such as semiconductor devices (such as integrated circuits) and liquid crystal display devices, exposure apparatuses such as a projection exposure apparatus by a step-and-repeat method (a so-called stepper) and a projection exposure apparatus by a step-and-scan method (a so-called scanning stepper (which is also called a scanner) are mainly used.
Substrates such as a wafer, a glass plate or the like subject to exposure which are used in these types of exposure apparatuses are gradually (for example, in the case of a wafer, in every ten years) becoming larger. Although a 300-mm wafer which has a diameter of 300 mm is currently the mainstream, the coming of age of a 450 mm wafer which has a diameter of 450 mm looms near. When the transition to 450 mm wafers occurs, the number of dies (chips) output from a single wafer becomes double or more the number of chips from the current 300 mm wafer, which contributes to reducing the cost. In addition, it is expected that through efficient use of energy, water, and other resources, cost of all resource use will be reduced.
However, because the thickness of the wafer does not increase in proportion to the size of the wafer, intensity of the 450 mm wafer is much weaker when compared to the 300 mm wafer. Accordingly, even when addressing an issue such as wafer carriage, is expected that putting it into practice would be difficult in the same ways and means as in the current 300 mm wafer.
Further, when the size of the wafer becomes as large as 450 mm, while the number of dies (chips) output from a single wafer increases, the probability becomes high of throughput deceasing due to an increase in the time required to perform an exposure process on a single wafer. Therefore, as a method of suppressing the decrease in throughput as much as possible, employing a twin stage method (for example, refer to U.S. Pat. No. 6,590,634, U.S. Pat. No. 5,969,441, or U.S. Pat. No. 6,208,407 and the like) can be considered where an exposure process on a wafer is performed on one wafer stage, and processing such as wafer exchange, alignment or the like is performed concurrently on another wafer stage. However, in the conventional exposure apparatus of the twin stage method, because the relation between the exposure position, alignment position, and wafer exchange position was not considered in particular, in the case when a 450 mm wafer was subject to processing, time was required until wafer exchange begins after exposure has been completed, which caused the risk of not being able to sufficiently improve the throughput.
Accordingly, appearance of a new system that can deal with the 450 mm wafer is expected.